


This New Feeling

by SmudgeInktopus



Category: Hymn to Demeter - Homer
Genre: Background Demeter (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), F/M, Falling In Love, Hades is Soft, Hades tries to be suave, Hades writes love poems, Hermes the courtship intermediary, Love, Love Confessions, Love Poems, Love at First Sight, Persephone Goes Willingly With Hades (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Poems, Poetry, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 01:47:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmudgeInktopus/pseuds/SmudgeInktopus
Summary: Hades tries writing Persephone love letters. Hermes tries to help.Nothing goes according to plan.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	This New Feeling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lnhammer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lnhammer/gifts).



_Oh, but we are bound by our_   
_Earths, we who bloom underground._   
_The spike and stalk who curl ‘round_   
_The hands that hold them steady,_   
_Bident and pitchfork and crown and wreath_   
_Of flowers, sweet, sun-warm. Myself,_   
_Though cold and distant from the world,_   
_Heated at the cheek by your glance_   
_Meadow-fresh and —_

  
“Goin’ with blank verse, huh? Bold move.”

Hades straightened from his position hunched over his desk and leveled a blank glare at Hermes. In the dim light from the wall sconces, the godly messenger looked more sallow than usual, cheekbones sharp and shadowed on his face. Even his wings slumped lower than their normal arrogant arc. 

Served him right.

“There’s a rhyme right there,” Hades said, tapping his forefinger against the page.

“You rhymed ‘round’ with ‘round.’” Hermes sighed. “Should I call Apollo?”

Hades tossed his pen aside and clutched at his hair. “What am I doing wrong?”

Picking up the page left neglected on the desk, Hermes hemmed and hawed over the scant few lines that made it from Hades’ mind and into ink.

“It’s a good effort. Honestly. Strong start,” he said, and hopped up to sit on the corner of the desk. A shining mercury feather fell onto Hades’ hand, which he dejectedly blew away. “You did get a little sappy at the end, there.”

“It’s a love poem, it’s supposed to be sappy.”

“But the right kind of sappy,” Hermes said, nudging Hades’ head with his golden sandal. “Let me help you, please, I’m begging.”

Leaning back in his seat, Hades rolled his eyes and waved a hand. “If you must.” 

It wasn’t that Hades was a terrible poet. In fact, when the gods were young, long before the uprisings and the wars, he wandered the world and crafted stories of his own. For ages he walked, body unbroken by the tests of time, and marveled at what his people had created. Mountains struck the sky as great spines of giants, rivers flowed from the eyes of weeping gods, and there was nothing but wide sky above Olympus and miles of dust below the grass that tickled the soles of his feet. 

And then he grew up. Wonder faded, and faint longing took its place, whispered in his ear when the corners of his kingdom stretched on, long and dark, meeting the sorrow in the deep reaches of his heart. 

But, then…

Hermes watched as Hades drifted, his mind wandering down a well-worn path, and seized the moment. He leaned in close. 

“How do you feel when you see her?”

The meadow. A whim to journey above seized, just to see, just one look. No chariot. Bare feet. And there, beyond the tree line, silhouetted in the morning sun. Petals reached for her if only to feel the heat of her skin, warm as summer air. She breathed, and life bloomed before her. It was wonderful.

He felt… It made him feel— 

“New.”

Hermes slapped the page in front of him and shoved the pen into his hand.

“That,” he said, pointing at the carefully scrawled lines. “Write that.”

***

  
_Do you remember the flowers?_   
_The mountains? The rivers_   
_run cold to the salt of the seas?_   
_They are distant to me, echoes_   
_of a world that has grown_   
_beyond my measure._

_I will not lie._   
_The longer my eyes_   
_adjust to the dark,_   
_the less I feel I can see._

_And then you were there,_   
_your hair, that wreath_   
_of ivy and golden blooms_   
_whose names have not yet_   
_been spoken aloud,_   
_curving leaves ‘round your_   
_fingers as though they were_   
_yours._

_You bring my_ _withered_   
_heart to beating._   
_You make my weathered life_   
_feel new._

  
***

  
High above the deepest reaches of the world, where the barley grew tall and plentiful, a wing-footed messenger delivered a letter sealed with pomegranate-red wax. He left it in the hollow of a very special tree.

A goddess found the letter, but it was not the goddess whose name adorned the envelope.

She slipped it into her pocket with grim eyes and walked on.

***

“You delivered them?”

“Yes.”

“To where I said—”

“—yes!”

Hades’ head fell into his hands.

“Maybe she’s just not that into you.”

Hermes would feel the soul-rending burn of the glare Hades threw at him for years to come.

“Hear me out, though,” he said, hands up, placating. “Are you _sure_ she feels the same way about you? This does seem a bit excessive.”

“Zeus,” Hades said as flat as he could muster. 

Hermes frowned. “Point taken.”

Pressing a wax-sealed envelope into the messenger’s hands, Hades asked him once again.

And once again, the god answered.

  
***

_I am long for this_   
_world, as I am long_   
_in the tooth that_   
_bites the hand that feeds,_   
_I admit. I have not taken_   
_my crown lightly._

_But if I were graced_   
_with the gold of your_   
_springtime smile_   
_and summer warmth,_   
_I may no longer_   
_yearn for this crown_   
_to be lighter, that you_   
_may reap what I_   
_may sow._

_You raise my_   
_hands in supplication._   
_I am a servant to_   
_your song._

  
***

She wouldn’t call it snooping. She was merely looking for something interesting to keep her busy while her mother was away. Demeter had warned her to stay close to home, to not go wandering about in the fields as she had when she was younger. There were dangers, she said, that she could not protect her from.

But what was a warning to one who would not listen?

Sometimes if she moved aside the right baskets, Persephone would find stray tulip bulbs or seeds that missed the harvest when they rolled away from her mother’s careful hands. Shifting a bundle of cloth once yielded a beautiful horse carved from deep brown wood, its once pointed ears nearly worn smooth. Her greatest find was a silver headband that bent like a strong vine. That one was kept hidden at the bottom of the satchel that held dried narcissus flowers. 

Today, her hands met the corner of a stack of folded papers tucked behind a loose panel in the corner of Demeter’s room. When she freed it from the darkness within the wall, her eyes fell upon a neatly tied bundle of sealed letters. Untying the knot, she leafed through them all, each one bearing her name in careful, gently scribed ink. 

Persephone broke the seal of the topmost letter, heart in her throat, and read.

And then, she ran.

High above, a winged god sighed in relief.

***

_All we can do in_   
_this life is hope_   
_the best may come_   
_to us. It is this same_   
_hope I hold for you._   
_Hope that you hold_   
_these letters as_   
_you hold your beloved_   
_yellow-white petals,_   
_loved and warm._

_Am I too much? Have_   
_I strayed too close_   
_to your sun, blind_   
_to the burn you wish_   
_me to feel? Only say_   
_once that my words are_   
_unwelcome, and I will_   
_keep my distance_   
_forever._

_Where I saw you_   
_and you saw me_   
_that blessed morning,_   
_speak love, and I_   
_will come running._

***

As day fell to dusk, as the voices of the wild grew quiet, he waited. This world did not know him as it used to. Grass bowed away from his feet, trees creaked as he passed them by, the birds hushed at his presence. 

But he was warm. Warmer than he had been all his life. 

In the meadow stood a goddess with flowers in her hair. 

She reached out to take his hand, and the world bloomed bright and new.


End file.
